A Song of Isolation

by Michael Malone

  As he worked his breath felt like a hot souring on her cheek. Certain that she was about to be sick she tried to turn away from him.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said, and through her fear Amelie could hear a genuine note in his tone. He really thought she would be fine? Instead of being reassured this frightened her even more.

  ‘Now, we’ll just loosen you from the bedposts and take you downstairs, cos I have a lovely surprise for you.’

  After he had untied her, he helped her to her feet.

  ‘Take it easy now. You’ve had a lovely sleep and sometimes we’re a bit woozy after a lie down.’

  She rubbed at her wrists, but the relief was short-lived, because he re-tied her hands together in front of her. Then he led her out of her bedroom, down the stairs and into the sitting room.

  Her heart quailed at the sight he had prepared for her.

  ‘While you had your little nap I was busy,’ he said. ‘I hope you like it.’

  A table had been placed in front of the fireplace. On it was a three-tiered wedding cake, complete with tiny bride and groom on the top. To the side of the cake was a large knife, a black leather bible and a bottle of champagne with two glasses.

  Trembling, she made herself turn to face him.

  He was very thin, just a few inches taller than her, his short, dark hair was glossed back, and he was wearing a red dinner jacket, a dog-collar, and a red lace eye mask.

  ‘I know, it’s all a bit much, but I do love the drama of a wedding, don’t you?’ His smile displayed a top row of perfect teeth.

  This guy was deluded. Did that mean she was in physical danger, or once this charade was over, would he leave her be?

  ‘And the dog-collar is weird I know, but who else –’ he reached for the bible ‘– is going to perform the ceremony.’

  She stared at him, taking more care this time: his body shape, his movements, his forehead, his nose and chin. Did she know him? Had their paths crossed before? Could he be an old boy­friend? But there was nothing familiar about him.

  ‘Now.’ He moved closer, using his extra height to try to intimi­date her. ‘I’m going to take the ball-gag off. How else are you going to say “I do”?’ He nodded his head in the direction of the knife. ‘You’re not going to shout for help are you?’

  He loosened the gag, placed it on the table beside the cake and handed her a glass, then he stepped back as if he was worried she might use it as a weapon. ‘Have a sip. Your mouth will be dry.’

  She sipped, felt the welcome moisture in her mouth. ‘Please don’t do this,’ she said. ‘Let me go. I won’t tell anyone this hap­pened. We can pretend it never happened.’

  The doorbell rang.

  They both turned. He stepped towards her, his hands up in a warning gesture. Must be her taxi driver, she thought.

  And she screamed with every ounce of energy she possessed.

  Chapter 52

  Glasgow, September 2019

  Every now and then Dave would get a book of inspirational quotes out of the library, Anything to distract from the clench of his fists, the weight on the back of his neck, the permanent cloud over his mind and heart that soured everything he tasted, touched, heard or saw. The constant fight-or-flight mode was exhausting. Continuously over-reacting and being unable to control those re­actions was an ever-present worry. There was a better man than this inside him, but he was lost in a mental maze of recrimination and resentment.

  He was sure he was going to hurt someone, or they’d hurt him and he’d never get out of prison.

  That morning’s quote came courtesy of the Talmud: ‘He who controls his thoughts, controls his destiny.’

  Yeah.

  Right.

  His thoughts were a free-wheeling, toxic jumble of self-and-everybody-else-loathing, and even the knowledge that he was about to get out didn’t offer any peace. In fact it made it worse. Inside he only had the other prisoners and guards to worry about. Once outside he would have to add the world’s population to that list, because how could he ever trust anyone again?

  A thought that churned through his mind every hour of every day he’d been inside these walls. He simply couldn’t get past the unfairness of it all.

  Dave didn’t sleep during his last night in prison. Nor did he relax for a moment the day before. Things had been mostly inci­dent free since the attacks near the start of his sentence, but he wouldn’t put it beyond whoever was behind them to have another go while he was still in prison.

  That was, if the threat to him would only come from within these Victorian walls. From the first it seemed to Dave that the orchestrator of the violence was in the outside world. There was any number of willing participants in prison, prepared to act on instructions, or to make a name for themselves.

  On the morning of his release Dave was on high alert. Any­thing that could go wrong would surely go wrong. He was sure the Parole Board would get in touch and say they’d made a mistake; that he should have had time added on for violent conduct.

  To make the time pass quicker that last day, at rec time he went round the guys with whom he had been on nodding acquaintance, and doled out his meagre belongings – toiletries, books, and the few food items he had left from his canteen. He was aware that some guys made friends in prison, but aside from the fact that most of the prisoners around him were sex offenders, since the incident with Angus he’d stopped himself getting close to anyone. He didn’t want them to be used against him.

  Angus himself had visited only a couple of times since his release. It had been good to see him again, and he couldn’t blame the lad for visiting so rarely; why on earth anyone who’d been in here would voluntarily come back, even just to the Visits Hall, was beyond Dave. The job with Robbins Accountants and Co. had only lasted a few months. Peter had reported to Dave that he was sure the boy’s guilty conscience stopped him from relaxing into the work, and he’d left as soon as he was legally out of the reach of his parole officer.

  At lights-out Dave lay back in his bunk, eyes open, staring into a darkness that seemed to lie heavy on his chest, aware of his pulse and sure that everyone in the building could hear it pounding. He listened for every movement beyond the walls of his cells. The clink of keys as a guard walked near his cell; he was sure he heard stealth in that movement, an intent to do him harm. A cough from the next cell and his imagination provided an image of someone crouched over him ready to strike.

  Calm, he told himself. Breathe. It is going to happen. At long last he was going to get out of here.

  But what was his life going to be like outside?

  He was an offender. A sex offender.

  A convicted paedophile.

  His days as a member of polite society were over. He may have served his time but people would never forgive him. If it weren’t for his father he was sure he’d never be able to work again and would spend the rest of his life on the street.

  No, he decided, he’d leave, get away from Glasgow as soon as his parole visits were done. A cave facing onto a deserted beach. A hut in a forest. Somewhere people didn’t visit. Because the wrong look, the wrong word, and he’d surely end up back in here.

  Best to put up with the bullshit sex-offender rehabilitation sessions, or whatever they were called, for as long as he had to, and then move into the wilds somewhere and get the fuck away from everyone.

  Chapter 53

  Damaris had come to associate birthday cakes with knives. Take your cutesy little candles, pink icing, your velvet sponge with its jam-and-cream filling and shove it, she thought each year. Leave her the knife, make sure it was deliciously sharp, and give her the peace and quiet to put it to good use.

  This year’s had fifteen of the little wicks, and she’d groaned when Uncle Cammy brought the massive white box into the house.

  ‘Really?’ she asked.

  He ruffled her head. Actually ruffled her head, and sa
id, ‘Don’t be acting all grown-up with me, D. You’ll always be my little girl.’

  She shrunk away from his touch, said, ‘Whatever.’ Even though she knew that no one said that anymore.

  ‘And why are you always wearing black?’ Cammy asked. ‘Hiding behind those shapeless tops and long sleeves. You’re a pretty girl. Don’t hide it.’

  ‘Leave it,’ Claire said, shooting him a warning look from her position on the sofa, nursing her ever-present glass of wine.

  Her mother and uncle talked about this subject a lot. Her mother opined that Damaris did it to hide her burgeoning sexual­ity after what she’d experienced as a little girl – she actually used the word ‘burgeoning’. She probably heard it on one of those TED talks she was always listening to, after which she’d subject Damaris to an interminable lecture. Interminable. A word Damaris got from, like, a proper book instead of doing it the lazy way.

  Even now that she was older they still talked about her as if she wasn’t there.

  ‘Just trying to be nice, sis.’ Cammy dropped onto the sofa beside his sister. He looked at her glass. ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere, eh?’

  Claire stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Whatever,’ she said.

  ‘I know it’s D’s birthday,’ Cammy said while staring at the glass. ‘But is there another reason why you’re drinking in the afternoon?’

  Claire looked at Damaris. Then her brother. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Damaris walked out of the room. It was all her mother had talked about that day.

  A letter arrived in the morning post from the Scottish Prison Service telling them that David Robbins had been released.

  ‘On my wean’s birthday,’ Claire had said when the mail arrived, and what felt like every hour since, so angry that saliva had flecked Damaris’s face as her mother raged.

  Way to make it all about you, Mother, Damaris thought. ‘My wean’. She said nothing. Of course. That pattern had been laid a long time ago and would take something major to shift. But the words lay coiled and heavy in her heart and on her tongue, taint­ing every mood, every moment.

  ‘Hey,’ Cammy yelled after her. ‘Where are you going? Not want to open your presents?’

  ‘Sorry, Uncle Cammy.’ She came back into the room.

  ‘That paedo getting out has got us all flustered,’ Claire said.

  No, Damaris thought. It’s got you all flustered. She didn’t know how she felt. She’d spent the last few years hiding from her feel­ings, only feeling a flicker of relief when thin, sharp metal scored some blood from under the gauze of her skin.

  ‘Here.’ Cammy thrust an envelope and a small box into her hand, his face bright with an expectant smile.

  God, please be something good, Damaris thought. She was ex­hausted from acting in a way that would suit her mother all day. Please let this envelope contain something she could be genuinely pleased about.

  She peered inside the envelope. Then thumbed through a col­lection of notes. There had to be hundreds in there. ‘Wow,’ she said.

  ‘Thought, seeing as you’re an ancient teenager, you’d want cash so you could spend it on what you want, rather than me buying what I think you want.’ As Cammy spoke he looked at her. That look he gave her that made Damaris feel that he could read every thought as it scrolled through her mind.

  ‘Go on,’ Cammy said. ‘Open the box.’

  She did. And saw that it contained an iPhone. The very latest model.

  ‘Wow, Uncle Cammy, that’s so cool.’ Damaris gave a little squeal and then gave her uncle a big hug.

  ‘That’s very generous,’ Claire said using a tone that sounded to Damaris like a warning: Stop spoiling my daughter. ‘Too generous, Uncle Cammy. And D, you can get to your bank in the morning and deposit the cash.’ Was she jealous because she couldn’t be so kind? Damaris wanted to tell her it didn’t matter, that she didn’t care about that stuff, but she couldn’t find the energy.

  ‘Sure,’ she replied, thinking, as if. First chance she got she was heading down the town with Chrissie and scoring the best quality weed she could find.

  ‘I’ve only got one niece,’ Cammy said. ‘I’ve got to spoil her. It’s the law.’ He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. He whis­pered, ‘And spend any of it on that shit you smoke and it’ll be the last thing you get from me.’

  With an effort, Damaris managed to hide her reaction.

  ‘What was that?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Uncle and niece stuff, Mum,’ Damaris managed to say, ignoring the shift of the pulse in her throat. How did he know?

  ‘Yeah, uncle and niece stuff, Claire Bear. Just you stick with the vino and leave the parenting to the real grown-up in the room.’

  Ouch, thought Damaris, her face still warm from Cammy’s whispered comment.

  ‘Arsehole,’ replied Claire.

  Once Cammy left her father came over and took her out for dinner. They went to a posh little restaurant in the West End, up some cobbled lane near a cinema.

  ‘Nice, eh?’ her dad asked, watching her as she looked around them.

  ‘Sure,’ she replied.

  ‘Have anything you want,’ he said. ‘Steak, cheesecake, chips, whatever.’

  Damaris made a face. ‘Cheesecake and chips. Gross.’

  Her dad laughed and Damaris’s heart lightened a little. She loved it when her father laughed. It happened so rarely.

  Life appeared to have improved for him over the last year or so. He’d met a new woman, Lucy. She was nice. Didn’t fuss. Didn’t try to be another mother. And he was living in a proper house now in a nice area.

  But still, despite all of this, there was a heaviness in him, and he drank way too much. He had a whisky in front of him now. And a pint of beer. She was never going to drink. Alcohol was for losers. Then, realising what a harsh judgement this was of both her parents, she felt her face heat.

  ‘I’m only having the one,’ he said as if he’d been watching where her eyes were going.

  She shrugged.

  ‘So, I hear Dave Robbins got out today,’ he said.

  She shrugged again.

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘It’s alright, Dad,’ she said. ‘Mum and I have already had the talk.’

  ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Just checking.’ He pretended to read the menu. ‘Are you okay? You can tell me if you’re not.’

  ‘I’m fine, Dad,’ she replied. ‘Really.’

  Her turn to pretend to read the menu, and as her eyes roamed sightlessly over the page she wondered about her lack of feeling about Dave’s release. She wasn’t worried, or scared. Should she be? She only knew that she wanted to see him. Make sure he was alright. All those years in a prison couldn’t have been very nice for him.

  How weird was that?

  Next day was a Saturday so Chrissie came over with her present – a bottle of Guess Girl, which Damaris thought was lush – and they spent the afternoon side by side on her bed, re-watching the Twilight movies.

  ‘I thought we were going into town … for some stuff,’ Chrissie asked at one point.

  ‘My uncle Cammy told me not to.’

  ‘Eh?’ Chrissie’s head shot up from the pillow. ‘He knows you smoke…?’

  ‘He totally called me on it.’

  ‘How does he know?’

  ‘Freaks me out. Feels like he knows everything about me.’

  ‘He’s proper hot,’ Chrissie said. ‘I wish I had a cute uncle like him.’ She scooched up on the bed so she was sitting upright. ‘But how does he know? That’s weird. Is he following you?’

  ‘He knows so many people,’ Damaris answered. ‘I bet one of them saw me buying the stuff and grassed me up.’

  ‘Grass-ed you up.’ Chrissie prodded her. ‘Get it?’

  ‘Moron.’

  Chrissie laughed. But it wasn’t her usual full-bellied chuckle, and Damaris r
ealised her friend was a little off today. She’d been so full of her own stuff she hadn’t spotted it until that moment. She felt like a bad friend and sunk a little into the bed.

  ‘Your uncle bought you your phone, yeah?’ Chrissie asked as if a thought had just occurred to her.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he got you your last one as well?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I bet he put you on one of those tracking apps, so he can, like, track you.’

  ‘He’s a bit of a control freak but even that’s too much for someone like him,’ Damaris replied while wondering if it might be true. Cammy did seem to know more than was healthy about her. ‘Anyway, I totally love my phone so I’ll forgive him.’

  Chrissie lapsed into silence, as if she was wondering how to say something.

  ‘What’s up, sis?’ Damaris asked. Sis was a title they gave each other, because they totally felt like they were sisters, but they only tended to use it in moments when they felt some tenderness was needed.

  Chrissie shook her head. She was leaning forward, legs crossed, head down, her long dark hair falling down either side of her face.

  ‘Come on.’ Damaris reached a hand out and touched one of Chrissie’s. ‘Spill.’

  ‘You’ve got to promise not to say.’ Chrissie’s eyes were large and there was a suggestion of impending tears in the corners.

  ‘Pinkie promise.’ Feeling a charge of worry for her friend, Damaris held up her right hand, pinkie prominent.

  ‘I’m only telling you this because, you know, what you went through, like, when you were a kid.’

  Damaris crossed her arms. Chrissie was the only person in her new life who knew about any of that, and she wasn’t comfortable with it being referred to out loud, even though they were alone in the room.